howies – brainfood

They say that if you can’t do the basics well, then nothing else matters.

Which is why all of our staple basics are being constantly improved over time. Stuff like t-shirts, sweats, polos and vests. A tweak here, a nip and a tuck there. Altered and refined until we are confident that they are as perfect as can be.

These are the easy to wear, ‘go to’ pieces that every wardrobe should have. The comfortable old familiar favourites that you reach for, without even thinking about it. Timeless stuff, that just never goes out of fashion.

So, this spring, we’ve introduced a few new basics into our range. Made from either organic or recycled cotton and fine-tuned to be just right, we’re sure that in time these will become your new favourites.

The average 100% cotton T-shirt contains only 73% cotton. The rest is made up of chemicals and resins that were used to grow and make it. Yet, we all think cotton is one of the most natural things around. The truth is, it’s not as nice as we’d all like to think.

Indeed, cotton is the world’s most sprayed crop. It uses over a quarter of all insecticides used today (see list below). The way they grow it isn’t good for the farmer’s health, the water table’s health, the factory worker’s health, the river’s health and eventually the sea’s health.

That’s why we use organic cotton. It costs us 30% more than normal cotton. It means our products cost a little more, but we think it’s worth it. After all, you wear your T-shirt next to your skin for 10 hours a day. (Just think how Nicorettes work).

The average cotton crop is sprayed 8-10 times a season. Indeed, it takes 17 teaspoons of chemical fertilizers to raise the 9 ounces of cotton needed to make a T-shirt.

The most common pesticides used are: Chlorphynfos (causes brain and foetal damage, impotence and sterility), Cyanazine (causes birth defects and cancer), Dicofol (causes cancer, reproductive damage and tumours), Ethephon (causes mutations) Fluometuron (causes blood and spleen disorders), Metam Sodium (causes birth defects, foetal damage, mutation), Methyl Parathion (causes birth defects, foetal damage, reproductive damage and destroys immune system),MSMA (causes tumours), Nailed (causes cancer, reproductive damage and tumours), Profenofos (causes eye damage and skin irritation), Prometryn (causes bone morrow, kidney, liver and testicular damage), Propargite (causes cancer, foetal and eye damage, mutation and tumours), Sodium Chlorate (causes kidney damage), Tribufos (causes cancer and tumours), and Trifluralin (causes cancer, foetal damage and mutation).
In America last year, farmers applied 53 million pounds of toxic pesticides to cotton fields. Out of the world’s total insecticide usage, 25% is used just to farm cotton.

And, if that isn’t enough, once the cotton has been grown it is dyed using toxic dyes. Then, to prevent it from creasing, it is finished with formaldehyde. Common sense says that can’t be right. Go organic.

This underwear has been made from an amazing fibre called Modal. Modal is a natural material made from the humble Beech tree.

The fibres are ultra smooth, which makes the fabric feel softer than cotton. Unlike cotton it remains soft, wash after wash, as the soap scum has nothing to cling on to. It also doesn’t lose its colour. Oh, and wood also has natural hygienic properties and is resistant to shrinkage.

We used a fine circular knitting process when we made this underwear to make sure that there are no annoying seams.

The Modal fibre is made by an Austrian company called Lenzing. The beech trees are sustainably grown and the wood pulp is turned into fibre in a closed loop process, which uses up to twenty times less water than cotton production. Any waste is used for by-products.

Pretty impressive, huh? It makes other underwear seem like ‘pants’.